Frustrated Inc. is my photo of a record I just received in the mail this past week or so. The album is Grave Dancers Union by Soul Asylum and is one of the most influential albums of the mid-1990s and a significant influence on me personally.
I took a large image of the stereo area in this set of photos, which had no focus on it. It was just a wide shot of an area of the living room. I focus much more heavily on the second photo by cropping the area around to make the album, turntable, and lamp stick out. The album has more focus, but you are also drawn to the old turntable and vintage lamp. The lamp is turned off. Most would have the lamp turned on, but I titled the photo Frustrated Inc., a song on the album. Frustrated is that there seems to be no light at the end, no way home, yet the record is playing; life is still moving. As someone who struggles with mental health issues, I feel that in the song’s title deeply. I am frequently frustrated and feel there is no light at the end. The light is there; you just can’t see it yet.
Are you familiar with the album and can resonate with any of the feelings of frustration that the album portrays in the many songs about losing hope in tough times?
Hi Andy!
Hopefully the light at the end of the tunnel is not a “Runaway Train.” (silly music humor). I listened to the album on iTunes making dinner tonight. Runaway Train was the song I remember the most from back then. I had to dig a little to find that Frustrated, Inc. was in the song, Misery. My teenage son said it sounded like it belonged on track for Smallville. We have been watching that series together. My son does battle frustration a lot due to his struggles with learning. His brain is like a large database consuming data all the time. He never forgets anything but he has no indexes. He has to do a full table scan to pull back the answers. For a really smart kid, this is frustrating as others around him work faster and have more free time. Time is frustrating. The world doesn’t like to give time. It pushes and pushes you to go faster. If he is given the time, he will impress with his answers. Yet, that is not how modern society works.
As for your photos, I loved the entertainment case in the first photo which is where my eye went straight away. Is that a vintage suitcase on the bottom shelf? The second photo is equally great. The cropping changed how I saw the photo completely. With the entertainment case removed, the turntable and album was front and center. Funny how the same picture framed different can show new wonders. Frustration is a reality for my son but I do hope that I can teach my son that he if re-frames his circumstances, there is light in the possibilities.
Hi Andy, I think you made the right choice to cut out so much background noise and crop the photo in such a way as to highlight the album and make it the focal point. I actually think you could even have cropped it more, and really brought the album into the center more. But it also works with having the turn-table and the lamp there, it just gives it a slightly different vibe. It’s less about the album itself and more about the aesthetic of records in general this way.
Nice photo, thanks for sharing!
Hi Andy, Your title immediately grabbed my attention. I think that it takes an incredibly amount of strength to share this and I respect you for it and think this can even help someone else. I think you made an excellent decision to crop the photo zooming in more detail to show the photo album and record player. I do believe that you may have been able to zoom in, even more to highlight the album more clearly but I think you did a great job!